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Astroworkers, we have returned! Today’s update includes the ability to make and play on custom planets, a feature requested by many! Yes, you can now design your own stages to share with friends! Here we’ll explain the steps necessary to carve out your own section of the galaxy.

2) Create a new folder here for your custom planet. Folder names can include standard alphanumeric characters as well as spaces, hyphens (-), underscores (_), and the pound sign (#).

3) The custom planets folder contains a file named NomNomGalaxy_palette.pdf which shows what pixel colors correspond to what map features.

Using the color palette info, make your own planet in an image editor like MS Paint. One pixel corresponds to one map tile, and different pixel colors correspond to different kinds of map tiles. For example, black pixels are standard terrain, grey pixels are stone blocks, and blue pixels are water.

The placement of rare plants, animal nests, and certain creatures is determined by single pixels. Note that some require a certain amount of space for proper placement. In the above screenshot the orange pixel representing a mammoth is placed above the “I love soup” platform due to its large size.

4) Save your custom planet as a PNG file and add “_map” to the end of the file name (example: “Custom Planet_map.png” for a stage called “Custom Planet”).

Your planet design may not work well (or at all) on your first attempt, but don’t give up! Trial and error are key. There are also a few things you can do to build a better world:

-As a general guideline, maps shouldn’t exceed 160,000 pixels. For example, current maps include sizes such as 400×400, 320×500, and 250×640.

-The planet background and foreground colors are currently randomized, so if you’re not happy with the results try changing a pixel. One small change may do the trick.

– Make sure the bottom layer of your planet is filled in. While it’s possible to make floating islands (as demonstrated in one of the samples included), you’ll still need sturdy ground.

– Give yourself enough matter. No matter how lovely your planet is, you won’t be able to build an equally lovely factory without enough raw materials.

– Remember, factories aren’t waterproof! Getting water in your factory can shut everything down. Of course, you might think of a way to overcome it…

Post your best creations! We’ll be on the lookout for strange and interesting planets to share on Twitter and Facebook!

We’ve also made a number of improvements and bug fixes!

Control Improvements:

– Added mouse support for the maintenance menu (options are now clickable).– Added mouse support for the company name entry field at the start of the game.– Added ability to plant ingredients with the X button (Xbox format controller).
– Added ability to rotate construction parts with the mouse wheel.
– Added ability to close the office menu with the same key used to open it.

UI Improvements:

– Updated on-screen UI hint for “Throw” to the left mouse button to help clarify that throwing direction is determined by pointer position when using mouse and keyboard.
– Newly acquired gum is now sorted with the same type instead of being added in chronological order.

Other:

– Changed Fever Time music.

Fixes:

– Fixed an issue that caused players to get stuck in the tutorial.– Fixed an issue where players could join a multiplayer session before a second controller option was available.– Fixed an issue with the options menu displaying invalid resolutions for the active display in multiple-monitor setups.– Fixed an issue where attempting to click options at the bottom of the key bindings menu could inadvertently select a list item in the background instead.– Fixed an issue in which the game would crash at startup when the settings file wasn’t deserialized properly.– Fixed an issue where the game would crash when the window was resized.– Fixed an issue found to desync multiplayer sessions.– Fixed minor localization issues.– Fixed other miscellaneous bugs.

Well Astroworkers, the time has finally come for you to venture into the expanse of the Galaxy and feed the hungry masses! Nom Nom Galaxy ver. 1.00 is now open for business!

It’s been a long journey since we first released on Early Access almost a year and a half ago – even longer if you count our time as PixelJunk Inc when this blog first started. We’ve learned a lot along the way! Two PAX Prime attendances in the Indie MEGABOOTH, awards at Brazil’s Independent Games Festival and GDC China’s Independent Game Festival, appearances at SXSW 2015, Gamescom 2014, PSX 2014, BitSummit 2013 & 2014, Indiecade 2014 and EGX 2014… whew! We’ve been hoping all over letting people sample the soup! Add to that the huge contributions that all of our Early Access players have added and we fell like we’ve got a soup that’s been seasoned by the best Astroworkers on the planet.

The full release of Nom Nom Galaxy adds:

Complete campaign with 27 different worlds to explore

Improved online 4P co-op

Galactic Challenge Mode with rotating challenges that earn you Galactic Gum to use in Conquest and S.O.O.P Sim modes

Steam Leaderboards

Steam Trading Cards

Steam Backgrounds

Steam Emoticons

Steam Achievements

Of course, the work for an Astroworker is never done, so we’ll be continuing to improve Nom Nom Galaxy over the next few months. There are a lot of things still be requested in the forums that we’d like to address. I don’t want to get into details now, but we’re hoping to add a few modes to keep the soup flavors just as interesting as the first taste.

Long time no soup, Astroworkers! Massive here to bring you the details on our latest update. We’ve made a number of big changes, fixed a lot of bugs, and added some features that you in the community have asked for. We’re almost ready to go full steam, as it were, and just have a few more things to experiment with. This update is another big one, so get ready!

Four on the Floor
In this update we’re finally bringing something that you’ve wanted for a very long time: 4P ONLINE CO-OP!

Now you can attempt to corner the space soup market as a member of a capitalistic quartet, delegating task to those best suited for the job like a BOSS! Explore further, build bigger, fight harder, MAKE THAT MONEY! You can combine 4 individual players or 2 local co-op and 2 other individual players. You can even use the newly added friend invite system to build your team!

This feature is still being improved, so the friends you invite will need to have Nom Nom Galaxy running or they won’t automatically join the session. However, this will be streamlined in the future.

Consumer Reports
We’ve also been listening to your feedback and requests in response to the game in general and the 00.99a update in particular, and a number of those are also reflected in this update. The first of these is: you can now choose which gum to chew!

Sugar HighGalactic Gum comes in a variety of flavors that do strange, science-type things to Astroworkers, but until know you were completely at the whims of fate as to what you could use and when. This has been changed so you can now choose the best stick of gum to chew when a potentially life threatening or financially explosive situation is impending! Need more defense funding? Gold Rush! Pesky rock wall in the way? Boulder Bash! The power is yours!

A Shocking Display

We moved the DANGER banner! Although the purpose of this display is to warn Astroworkers of impending danger, it was often responsible for its fair share of headaches itself, by obstructing your view of the action. The position has been lowered to avoid this, and the transparency of the banner itself increased. Now YOU are the danger.

Under ConstructionCorridor parts can now be overwritten with parts of a different shape, costing only the matter difference between the two. This should help with speedy renovations of the factory to better accommodate Astroworker needs.

Garden VarietyPreviously, plant growth conditions did not carry over into S.O.O.P. mode when starting with a Conquest mode factory, but this has been remedied. Now Astroworkers can continue cultivating their little stretch of land uninterrupted! Also, to make automated gardening more effective, Clarence’s harvesting time has been increased to prevent gardens from being destroyed.

There are also a number of smaller usability improvements and bug fixes, which are as follows:

Planet GSA-002 (Tutorial 2) removed

Both control schemes (Controller and Keyboard/Mouse) can now be used in menus, regardless of settings

Added windowed fullscreen as a display option

Increased sprinting oxygen cost

Fixed bug where 1P controller vibrated in place of 2P controller

Fixed bug where girders damaged enemies

Expanded construction trigger radius in tutorial

Fixed bug where player died if riding Hopper EX in water when battery died

Fixed bug where player got stuck in wall if damaged while riding Hopper EX

It’s been quite a while since we last spoke! After the Christmas update we took some time away from the blog and our regular updates to put our heads down and work on a host of key features. We’ve had a lot cooking up and now we’re ready to unveil the merger between feedback from our dedicated early access supporters and the ingredients we’ve had on the shelf at Q.

And because we really want everyone to get a taste of this new flavor of Nom Nom, we’re reducing the price for the remainder of Early Access to $9.99 (Note: Price change will be reflected on Steam later today). If you’ve been waiting for a good sale to check it out, it’s the perfect time.

There have been sweeping changes and updates throughout the whole Galaxy. Because the scope of this update is pretty huge, we’ll just give an overview today and then give more details about the changes over the next couple of weeks. When you launch Nom Nom you’re going to see new robots, enemies, planets, building parts, optimization, new modes, new moves, and… gum!?!

The foremost issue on our plate was getting Nom Nom Galaxy optimized for better play on a wider variety of machines. It’s something that we hoped to be able to address earlier in the game’s development, so we’re really happy to put this new update out. Essentially, we’ve migrated Nom Nom Galaxy from our old PixelJunk Engine to an updated version that Double Eleven created when they were porting the other PixelJunk games to Steam. The original engine was beginning to show it’s age – it’s the engine we used to create all of our classic PlayStation 3 games. And while the ol’ girl served us well, Nom Nom was sometimes too much for her to handle. The game looks pretty simple on the surface, but there’s lots of stuff going on in the background, like how the planets are held together, fluid and gas dynamics, and calculating the “living parameters” of the plants and animals.

The update to the new engine, along with lots of code optimization on the team’s part, means that soup production for our Astroworkers should be a much better experience. There’s support for a wider variety of graphics cards, controllers, and monitor setups.

We don’t expect everything to be perfect straight off the bat, so make sure you jump on the forums and let us know how Nom Nom is running on your rig.

Okay, I know you’re eager to jump back into the soupy fray, but there’s something that we’ve got to do before we start. Because of the magnitude of the changes, old Nom
Nom save data is no longer compatible with the current version and you’ll need to start new games. When you start you’ll be greeted with a new screen for managing your game data. Name your company and you’re be ready to work.

One of our largest tasks was bringing together Yamamura’s quirky art and our soup theme into an entertaining story and campaign mode. We’ve hinting at the larger theme of galactic domination by means of soup, but now you’ll be able to dig into the background of the Galaxy. When you get to the new main menu, you’ll see the new campaign mode, Corporate Conquest, where you can start your hostile takeover of the galaxy.

Corporate Conquest starts you at the training facility and you’ll need to finish the two tutorials in order before you start exploring. After completing them you can go to any planet in the first sector of the galaxy. Each planet has two different play styles, a market battle vs. rival soup corporations and S.O.O.P, a sandbox mode for all those Astroworkers who want to make bases that are visible from space! You’ll need to complete the market share battle to unlock the S.O.O.P mode for each planet.

To move to other sectors of the galaxy Robo-shacho requires that you discover recipes available on those planets. When you’ve satisfied him, the gate will unlock and you can move on to new planets.

The new Corporate Conquest mode has changed the way research works in Nom Nom Galaxy, also. Conquering rivals in market share battles earns you research unlocks. Those unlocks will carry over to future planets. We’ve done away with unlock keys on the planet, but you’ll still need to earn enough gold by selling soup to buy research.

Well, I can imagine that by now the soup in your noggin is swimming with all of this new info that we’re dumping on you. This is just the beginning, but it should get you prepared to take on the mantle of Astroworker once more. We’ll be back later this week with more information on the new and improved Nom Nom Galaxy!

Earlier this month we sent our new Soup Co. chef-in-training Roger Hicks to SXSW to give Texas a taste of Nom Nom. We were nominated for the Gamer’s Voice Award alongside many other great indie titles like Nova-111, Hyper Light Drifter, and Chroma Squad.

“Everyone seemed to really enjoy the game a lot,” Roger reported. “A lot of people instantly thought it was Terraria, and then they quickly realized it wasn’t. But they still really enjoyed it! A lot of people were asking about the Steam Early Access and when the full game was going to come out. They also wondered if it was multiplayer.

A lot of people also asked me about Tomorrow Children. I couldn’t really answer anything about that. A bunch of people also want another Pixel Junk Monster game!”

Thanks, Roger! Our soup didn’t take the top prize this time, but there were still plenty of future Astroworkers trying their hand at galactic soup conquest! We were proud to get yet another nomination for Nom Nom Galaxy.

We’re working hard on getting Nom Nom ready for our next update, which should be in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

One year ago, we brought our first original PixelJunk game to Steam via Early Access. It’s been a unique experience for Q. We’ve earned our reputation as the quiet studio in Kyoto making the quirky PixelJunk games. The quirky gameplay mechanics of the series was born from engine experiments or re-imagining gaming genres in 1080p (That was a big deal in 2007!) . Nom Nom Galaxy was a big departure for our development style. Since entering Early Access, we’ve experienced first hand the merits and demerits of developing in public and learned a few lessons. But ultimately, we think that Nom Nom Galaxy is a better game, and us a better studio, for it.

You may have noticed that we’ve had our heads down since successful showings at GDC China (Best Music at IGFC) and the inaugural PlayStation Experience last year. We’ve spent the past few months working with Double Eleven, our partners in the UK, adding content and tweaking based on internal and community feedback. We’re happy to announce that we’ve got an update coming in the next couple of weeks with a host of improvements, including new enemies, new planets and some much-anticipated optimizations!

There are a lot of other changes and additions in the next update, so jump back in when it’s released and let us know what you think!

It’s been a little while since we’ve seen any updates for Nom Nom Galaxy, but we elves have been working hard behind the scenes. We’ve left a bounty of Nom Nom presents under our Cosmic Christmas Tree for everyone!

The first present under our tree is a new way for Astroworkers customize their bases. These nifty escalators will transport soup and ingredients up or down automatically and add some variety to base designs.

This is sure to make Astroworkers who construct huge bases happy. We’ve added a crystal generator that can supply additional power to your base. You’ll have to find crystals hidden on the planets in order to create one first though.

If you’ve ever dreamed about zipping around the planet quickly, the new Warp Gates are right up your alley. For the cost of a little matter, you can teleport to and from your office to different Warp Gates that you set up around the map.

Added new research tiers to increase rocket speed. Speed can be increased 5 times, with a 10% increase each time. Key cost will increase by one with each upgrade.

Added Warp Gate to research. Costs 10 keys to unlock.The Office serves as the warp gate home. Multiple gates can be built and the Astroworker will travel round robin to each gate before returning back to the office. Warping costs matter that increases according to distance.

Added Crystal Generator to research. Crystal Generators supply additional power to base equal to the main office. Astroworkers must find a crystal on the planet in order to construct a generator. Crystals can be found on Iddil, Pomelyk, and Apoxus-67.

Added new in-game BGM some stages

Changes

Adjusted the timing of punches to make it easier to combo.

Added knockback to the shotgun when enemy gets hit

Added some knockback when you punch enemies

Astroworkers can now do a rapid fire punch at the expense of some of their oxygen.

Adjusted the action icons (Eat, Plant, Ladder, etc.)

Increased the damage on the Dash Punch from 10 to 15. You can’t cancel out of this attack now.

Added radar function to soup factories. Radar on the factory will now direct you to the closest ingredient. In 2P mode, the factory will find ingredients close to the last player to put an ingredient into the factory.

Added a day timer at the bottom of the screen.

With the Maintenance Menu open, you can now us L1 R2 (1, 2 on keyboard) to switch between buildings in the area.

Changed the unlock key icon.

Added button prompts to proceed on the Earnings Report and Research menus.

Collectables (matter, floppy disks) can now be transported via treadmills.

Charlie and Charles can now pick up items from the storage.

Oxygen will no longer block water.

You can no longer build a second base and must use Crystal Generators for additional base power.

Fixed players being able to put items into buildings that no longer have power.

Robots will no longer take damage from players.

Seasonal changes will now be determined on a planet basis, not galaxy-wide.

Added hint when placing blueprints (Corridor connection hints).

Astroworkers can no longer punch while grabbing ledges

Bug Fixes

Fixed building defense bug fix which would cause buildings destroyed using the maintenance menu to only deal damage to the building instead of destroying it.

Fixed a bug where picking up an ingredient at the last second of decay would cause it to become invisible.

Fixed a bug while climbing ladders underwater.

Fixed a bug where the character would not be placed properly on the ladders.

Fixed a bug where carrying a robot that carries a heavy object (soup) would not slow the player.

Fixed shotgun pellet fire start location.

Fixed a bug where you can achieve very high speed by punching while floating (In girdiers).

Fixed problem where wielding a robot would prompt Eat and Plant commands.

Fixed a bug where the player could climb into walls while getting hit by monsters.

Fixed a bug which would cause the Astroworker to stop mid-attack if touched by enemies

Autumn is in full swing, and this update contains a number of things to help you bring in the soup and bring home the bacon in Nom Nom Galaxy. The changes this time run the gamut from small adjustments to BIG changes-and maybe even a glimpse of the future…

The Good Earth

It’s actually really low gravity.

First up is something that I know many have hoped for and pleaded with Robo-Shacho’s suggestion box for over and over. Astroworkers can now pull blocks of dirt out of walls and out of the ground! When standing next to a dirt wall, press and hold the Interact button, then pull in the opposite direction to pop out a block. If you want to pull a block out of the ground, press down first, grab it with Interact, then pull up to pop it out. Blocks of dirt can be placed or thrown, and will stick to other terrain. Try out new ways to blaze a path!
You can also pull blocks with matter and floppies in them, which could make collecting resources even easier.

No Limit, Soldier!

Astrokinesis!

Thanks to the Astroworker healthcare plan now covering visits to the optometrist, you can now place corridors, turrets, and other factory parts anywhere on screen, with no distance limit. Hopefully, this will make expanding your factories (and stacking those soup bucks) a much more simple and streamlined process. Of course, you still need to make sure the parts are connected and powered up!

Corporate Affairs

Yamasoup is on the rise!

Speaking of stacking bucks, our last big change has to do with the financial future of the Nom Nom universe. We’ve added “Company Funds,” which are earned by beating rivals. You’ll be able to get an idea of how industrious your rivals are at a glance by checking the amount of funds their defeat is worth. As for what these company funds will mean for the industrious Astroworker…keep your eyes on the soup market (and this blog)!

Of course, these are not all of the changes this update brings!

Other Updates/Fixes

Players no longer returned to office at the end of the day.
Players will remain in the place they were at the start of a new day with full health and oxygen.

We’ve got a doozy of an update for you this week! Another often requested robot finally joins the team, a plant and planet make an appearance, and Nom Nom Galaxy wins another award!

Hungry soup connoisseurs!

One of my favorite things about developing Nom Nom Galaxy is taking the game to shows and getting to talk to people about the game and watch them play. We’ve been in Early Access for about six months now and talking with you all on Steam, and with the popularity of live streaming it’s easy to see people playing Nom Nom Galaxy online. But there’s nothing quite like seeing it in person and interacting with the players.

Excellence in Audio! This might be the Electric Bends first award!

This year we’ve been fortunate enough to take Nom Nom to three(!) shows, BIG in Brazil, PAX Prime, and GDC China last week as a finalist for the Independent Games Festival. Nom Nom took the top prize at BIG, was part of the Indie MEGABOOTH at PAX Prime, and now we’ve been honored with an Excellence in Audio Award from IGF China!

We’d like to thank everyone at GDC China and IGF China for having us at the show and honoring us with the award. The audio in Nom Nom Galaxy was all done by our in-house jam band, The Electric Bends. This award is sure to push those guys back into the studio to cook up some more tunes for the Galaxy!

On to this week’s update!

Atomic Daawwwwwg!

A pooch with a greenthumb!

The latest addition to your robot army is sure to be a welcome one. Since Nom Nom hit Early Access, there’s been on element that’s been from factory automation: Harvesting ingredients! No matter how well you’ve designed your factory, your Astroworker has always had to do the dirty work of pulling up the plants. Soup Co. has sent some relief in the form of the Astroworker’s best friend: Ben!

Most dogs like to destroy gardens, but Ben is special case. You can unlock Ben for three keys in the research menu and at a cost of 150 gold per robot. After summoning Ben, hand him an ingredient to sniff and he’ll move to harvest plants that have fully grown and leave one ingredient behind for it the next plant to grow. Ben will deposit the ingredients in his doghouse, which can be connected to your factory from the sides or the bottom. He’ll also climb up one block terrain, giving you some more building options. Like all of the other robots, give him a punch and he’ll drop whatever he’s carrying. To change what Ben is harvesting, simply give him another ingredient.

Killer Pumpkins

The plant life in Nom Nom Galaxy is nothing to shake a stick, or buzzsaw, at! In the tradition of overly aggressive tomatys and mean mushrooms, we introduce the latest in pugilistic produce, the Killer Pumpkin! (That’s a temp name. If you have any ideas for another, let us know!)

This pumpkin grows from vines and drops down upon unsuspecting Astroworkers. If it misses, the pumpkin does a rolling attack to pummel its target!

Pumpkins only appear on Iddil now, but expect to find them on other planets soon!

Other Updates/Fixes

Added a VS screen at the start of the game

Rival company market share now appears in the planet percentage area

When playing co-op and holding an item, the factory will only blink for the player holding the item

New stage, Kakoi, added

We’ve removed the winter season because of a silly bug. It’ll be back once we’ve squashed it. But for now, enjoy a Game of Thrones style Summer.

Added an arrow to help you get back to your money and matter after dying.

Our update this week that addresses some outstanding issues, including the tutorial, vehicles and combat – all things we talked to you guys about during PAX. We’ve also added a new robot that addresses one of the most requested additions to the factories: throwing ingredients down! Before we get into the update, Nom Nom Galaxy continued its tour of gaming events this last weekend by making its debut at IndieCade!

The latest build was available for would be soup entrepreneurs to try out. This build for the PS4 includes our new tutorial, which was debuted for the first time at the show. We’ve also been busy getting ready for yet another show, GDC China. Nom Nom Galaxy was nominated for Best Game in the Independent Games Festival there, wish us luck!

Okay, on to the meat and potatoes (soup)!

Down We Go!

This week we’d like to introduce a new robot to the team, Travis! Travis will add a new dimension to your factories by allowing you to finally send ingredients down.

Make Your Mark

While we love Soup Co., there’s nothing quite like owning your own company. From now on soup meisters can name their own company when starting their factory. The name will appear in the top right corner next to your rivals. We’re looking for ways to display this more prominently. How would you like to brand your company in Nom Nom Galaxy?

Learning the Ropes

There’s a brand new tutorial stage available at the stage select menu. This replaces the original tutorial we launched with at the beginning of Early Access. We think this new tutorial does a much better job of explaining just how to get your factory up and running. It’s still a little bit raw (keyboard and mouse prompts aren’t in just yet) so we’re looking for any feedback on how we can improve it.

That New Car Smell

There have been numerous adjustments to balance with the vehicles, including costs, and power duration. It will now be more apparent when a vehicle is running out of power. The Hoverboard was a little bit overpowered and has had it’s jumping toned down. And the Pogo, which wasn’t very useful before, has received a major update! Pressing the RB will now extend a drill that can remove blocks or attack enemies and animals! Finally, we’ve added a slightly localized Chinese version in the current update to assist (me) with showing NNG in the IGF Pavillion at GDC China this weekend. It’s still a work in progress.